Longtime readers will know the MGoBlog policy on sacking: sacks and sack yardage should be counted as passing, because they are pass plays, not rushing, as the NCAA and thus everybody else is wont to do. Counting sacks as passing leads to a better understanding of success and where yards come from, and prevents problems like the computer in the NCAA videogames passing every play because the sacks that generates keep making the rushing numbers look progressively more awful.

For the Hail to the Victors preview books (kickstarter coming soon) each year we put these "At-a-Glance" boxes into the opponent previews, complete with offensive and defensive stats that we've adjusted for this. Having done the calculations for that, I thought I'd share them with you.

First, the difference it makes to passing stats:

2013 Passing

Unadjusted

Sack-Adjusted

Team

Pass Att

Pass Yds

YPA

Rk

Sacks

Sack Yds

YPA

Rk

Indiana

470

3680

7.83

2nd

18

121

7.29

1st

Ohio State

368

2846

7.73

3rd

22

135

6.95

2nd

Penn State

409

3110

7.60

4th

22

135

6.90

3rd

Michigan

395

3221

8.15

1st

36

270

6.85

4th

Wisconsin

355

2562

7.22

6th

16

94

6.65

5th

Illinois

455

3452

7.59

5th

30

231

6.64

6th

Iowa

375

2562

6.83

10th

15

61

6.41

7th

Michigan State

430

2964

6.89

9th

17

127

6.35

8th

Nebraska

378

2557

6.76

11th

17

140

6.12

9th

Northwestern

382

2726

7.14

8th

36

198

6.05

10th

Minnesota

267

1925

7.21

7th

27

170

5.97

11th

Purdue

426

2590

6.08

12th

38

265

5.01

12th

By counting sacks as passing Michigan drops from 8.15 yards per attempt (good for the best passing team in the conference last year) to a more realistic 6.85 YPA, dropping them to fourth. Minnesota's passing game dropped from middling to awful, Iowa's climbed from the bottom to the middle.

And the difference to running stats:

2013 Rushing

Unadjusted

Sack-Adjusted

Team

Rushes

Rush Yds

YPC

Rk

Sacks

Sack Yds

YPA

Rk

Ohio State

635

4321

6.80

1st

22

135

7.27

1st

Wisconsin

557

3689

6.62

2nd

16

94

6.99

2nd

Indiana

458

2422

5.29

3rd

18

121

5.78

3rd

Nebraska

584

2804

4.80

4th

17

140

5.19

4th

Illinois

411

1668

4.06

10th

30

231

4.98

5th

Minnesota

586

2538

4.33

5th

27

170

4.84

6th

Northwestern

507

2069

4.08

9th

36

198

4.81

7th

Penn State

501

2088

4.17

8th

22

135

4.64

8th

Michigan State

569

2433

4.28

6th

17

127

4.64

9th

Iowa

556

2338

4.21

7th

15

61

4.43

10th

Michigan

498

1634

3.28

11th

36

270

4.12

11th

Purdue

319

805

2.52

12th

38

265

3.81

12th

Michigan's awful running game is still awful, but it no longer looks like the Scheelhaase option-running game was a disaster. Ohio State's 7.27 YPC isn't just first among the conference; OSU and Wisconsin were the #1 and #2 rushing offenses in the country. Michigan: 115th out of 125 teams.

This isn't perfect since quarterback scrambles still can't be pulled out of rushing stats, but that's not so big of a deal considering a running QB should be contributing to your rushing success.

[Jump for Devin Garder's passing season and profiles of next year's opponents]

Individual passing: Like an idiot I went and personally input every sack number for Big Ten QBs from NCAA's box score totals before thinking to ask Mathlete, who had all that already. Anyway here's the pure passing stats of QBs of interest:

Rk

Player

Team

PA (Adj)

P Yds (Adj)

YPA

1

Tre Roberson

Indiana

139

1079

7.76

2

Tommy Rees

Notre Dame

422

3194

7.57

3

Nate Sudfeld

Indiana

338

2400

7.10

4

Devin Gardner

Michigan

379

2614

6.90

5

Caleb Rowe

Maryland

136

933

6.86

6

Braxton Miller

Ohio State

276

1879

6.81

7

Christian Hackenberg

Penn State

413

2810

6.80

8

Joel Stave

Wisconsin

352

2388

6.78

9

C.J. Brown

Maryland

303

2046

6.75

10

Kenny Guiton

Ohio State

110

740

6.73

11

Tommy Armstrong Jr.

Nebraska

135

891

6.60

12

Nathan Scheelhaase

Illinois

458

3021

6.60

13

Connor Cook

Michigan State

396

2610

6.59

14

Jake Rudock

Iowa

360

2330

6.47

15

Trevor Siemian

Northwestern

315

2032

6.45

16

Gary Nova

Rutgers

328

1979

6.03

17

Ron Kellogg III

Nebraska

141

848

6.01

18

Philip Nelson

Minnesota

200

1186

5.93

19

Mitch Leidner

Minnesota

91

528

5.80

20

Chas Dodd

Rutgers

143

795

5.56

21

Taylor Martinez

Nebraska

116

589

5.08

22

Danny Etling

Purdue

298

1469

4.93

23

Rob Henry

Purdue

160

774

4.84

24

Kain Colter

Northwestern

99

458

4.63

The Indiana offense is crazy-awesome and that plus the receivers they had last year made their quarterbacks' stats crazy-awesome. Tommy Rees was a good QB but he was also the beneficiary of a system designed for high-efficiency passing. My point is Devin Gardner is right behind them. He too was helped by good receiving—Jeremy Gallon and Devin Funchess were two of the higher-efficiency targets in the conference according to a study I'll share at a later date. And the TD/INT ratio will certainly reflect a higher level of risk from him. That's still some dang impressive pure passing stats.

But there's totally a QB controversy guys.

2014 Opponents (who were FBS last year, i.e. not App State):

Wallowing any further in the 2013 offense won't do us much good, so let's shift our focus to things we can learn about next year's enemies. How to read this: Ranks are given as if they were part of a 14-team Big Ten conference. YPP is total yardage/play. Show?

Team

YPC

Rush Rk

YPA

Pass Rk

All YPP

YPP Rk

Michigan

4.1

13th

6.8

5th

5.4

8th

Notre Dame

4.7

(9th)

7.4

(1st)

6.1

(5th)

Miami (Ohio)

3.8

(14th)

3.5

(last)

3.7

(last)

Utah

4.6

(11th)

6.5

(8th)

5.5

(8th)

Minnesota

4.8

6th

6.0

12th

5.2

13th

Rutgers

4.6

11th

5.9

13th

5.3

11th

Penn State

4.6

9th

6.9

3rd

5.7

6th

Michigan State

4.6

10th

6.3

9th

5.4

9th

Indiana

5.8

3rd

7.3

1st

6.6

3rd

Northwestern

4.8

7th

6.0

11th

5.4

10th

Maryland

4.8

8th

6.9

4th

5.8

5th

Ohio State

7.3

1st

7.0

2nd

7.1

1st

Tendency: A more accurate accounting of sacks provides a more accurate portrayal of teams' tendencies, although this still has all sorts of two-minute drills and comebacks or clock-killing all-runs-with-the-backups drives, etc.

Touchdown rate is simply touchdowns divided by total plays. Turnover rate is the percent of plays there ought to have been a turnover—given that 50% of fumbles ought to be recovered I took interceptions plus 50% of total fumbles and divided that total by the number of plays.

Team

Run%

Run % Rk

TD Rate

TD% Rk

TO Rate

TO% Rk

Michigan

52%

9th

5.4%

4th

2.6%

10th

Notre Dame

50%

(11th)

4.5%

(9th)

1.9%

(4th)

Miami (Ohio)

54%

(6th)

1.8%

(last)

3.1%

(14th)

Utah

52%

(9th)

4.7%

(6th)

3.2%

(14th)

Minnesota

66%

1st

4.1%

10th

1.9%

3rd

Rutgers

47%

12th

4.3%

9th

3.3%

14th

Penn State

53%

8th

4.7%

7th

2.3%

6th

Michigan State

55%

6th

4.6%

8th

1.2%

1st

Indiana

47%

11th

6.6%

2nd

2.2%

5th

Northwestern

53%

7th

3.5%

13th

2.1%

4th

Maryland

50%

10th

4.0%

11th

2.9%

11th

Ohio State

61%

2nd

8.3%

1st

1.8%

2nd

What we get is a rough idea of how that team played. As you might imagine turnovers were inversely correlated with how good the offense was in general: Ohio State's highly efficient offense got into the end zone on a remarkable 1 out of every 12 plays, but they didn't turn the ball over either; Miami (not THAT Miami) was awful at scoring and turned the ball over a ton because they were awful on offense.

Michigan got into the end zone on 5.4% of their plays—good for fourth in the conference—but also had a high turnover rate, suggesting an offense playing risk-ball. Among next year's opponents only Utah (4.7% scoring rate against a 3.2% turnover rate) seems to have the same profile. Conservative teams were Minnesota, Michigan State, and Northwestern.

Interesting thing about the run/pass ratios: primarily running offenses were Ohio State, Minnesota and a lot of teams not on Michigan's schedule next year. Notre Dame, Utah, Rutgers, Indiana and Maryland are passing offenses. In other words, Michigan's likely to be facing a lot more passing this season than they did in 2013.

Defense: Sure, I can flip these to show how the defenses did.

Team

YPP

YPP Rk

YPC

Rush Rk

YPA

Pass Rk

Michigan

5.3

7th

4.4

6th

6.2

9th

Notre Dame

5.1

(5th)

4.7

(9th)

5.7

(4th)

Miami (Ohio)

6.4

(13th)

5.3

(12th)

7.6

(13th)

Utah

5.4

(9th)

4.5

(7th)

6.2

(9th)

Minnesota

5.7

10th

5.0

11th

6.3

10th

Rutgers

5.7

11th

3.8

3rd

7.0

11th

Penn State

5.3

8th

4.7

9th

5.9

5th

Michigan State

4.0

1st

3.6

1st

4.4

1st

Indiana

6.7

14th

5.9

13th

7.7

14th

Northwestern

5.5

9th

4.8

10th

6.1

8th

Maryland

5.1

4th

4.5

7th

5.7

4th

Ohio State

5.3

6th

4.3

5th

6.0

7th

Not a lot of surprises here. Among new opponents, Miami (NTM) is just really bad on defense, Rutgers is not good against passing, and Utah's defense was a lot like Michigan's. Notre Dame was weak against the run despite a very good defensive line, reportedly because their linebackers were a problem.

And tendency:

Team

Run%

Run % Rk

TD Rate

TD% Rk

TO Rate

TO% Rk

Michigan

50%

7th

4.1%

8th

2.7%

2nd

Notre Dame

54%

(12th)

3.4%

(4th)

2.0%

(11th)

Miami (Ohio)

56%

(13th)

5.7%

(12th)

1.7%

(14th)

Utah

46%

(4th)

3.9%

(6th)

1.7%

(14th)

Minnesota

51%

8th

4.1%

9th

2.2%

9th

Rutgers

41%

1st

5.1%

11th

2.1%

10th

Penn State

48%

5th

3.9%

5th

2.5%

5th

Michigan State

45%

3rd

2.3%

1st

3.2%

1st

Indiana

54%

11th

6.3%

14th

1.9%

13th

Northwestern

49%

6th

3.9%

4th

2.6%

3rd

Maryland

51%

9th

4.0%

6th

2.0%

12th

Ohio State

42%

2nd

4.0%

7th

2.5%

6th

This has more to do with schedules than how the defenses play, e.g. Rutgers saw a lot of dinky-dunk offenses in the Big East/American, while MSU saw lots of passing plays because running on their defense was suicide. Notably Michigan was second only to MSU in generating turnovers.

Indiana's defense was just bad and MSU's was just really good, but the discrepancies in TD% and TO% ranks for Notre Dame, Utah and Maryland (bolded above) demonstrate defenses playing bend-don't-break. That fits with what we've heard about their defenses, though Notre Dame's new defensive coordinator says he's going to reverse that, having his backfield play a lot more man as opposed to the mostly zone they were in last year. Michigan's was the only defense that seemed to stand out as high-risk, or "aggressive" if you're using coach speak.

Lessons:

All the stuff they said about our offensive line was true. Giving sacks to the passing game didn't help the rushing game, but painted a picture of a devastating passing game if only could protect the quarterback.

Michigan is "aggressive," if you consider the high TD and turnover rates purposeful, and high-event if you don't. So there's a reason to watch, eh?

Ohio State's offense and Michigan State's defense were off-the-charts good. They should be emulated.

The 2014 schedule has way more passing offenses than last year, and that's not even considering Northwestern going from Kain Colter to Unstoppable Throw God Trevor Siemian and Penn State going to a dunky James Franklin offense.

I kind of disagree. I mean, sure, I'd like Michigan to be dominant, but an NCAA landscape where it's possible for most teams to beat most other teams on any given Saturday makes for much better college football in the long run.

Seth's post makes me sad. I find myself uninspired looking forward to Michigan football. Hope remains, but faith is disappearing. For the first time the formula in my head for Michigan to succeed extends beyond our players and coaches playing and coaching well. It now includes the need for MSU and OSU to regress, neither of which is likely with OSU probably improving their D, and MSU probably improving their O. This is based on the disparity we witnessed last year between Ohio's O and our D, and MSU's D and our O. This was a disparity I can only twice recall outside of the RR era and that was Dennis Dixon and Oregon 2007, and Donovan McNabb and Cuse two decades ago where an opposing team literally toyed with one side of the ball.

Hoke came in pledging to get back to Michigan's roots, and defense and toughness, and about the only thing Hoke's done right in regressing every year is recruit, and take us to a bowl win over VT where we were severely outplayed. Firing Borges showed he had some semblance of a clue this offseason, but keeping Funk, and then this Spring that provided zero evidence that the O line will trend positively, quickly diminished any faith therefrom.

Road games at ND, MSU and Ohio... Funk still on the payroll... Faith gone, but hope remains.

There will always be hope.

The thing I love most in the world has been held hostage by unacceptable people.- B. Cook<